


Unforgiven

by numinous_mysteries (igloo_octopus)



Category: The X-Files
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-06
Updated: 2017-10-06
Packaged: 2019-01-09 20:10:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12283536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/igloo_octopus/pseuds/numinous_mysteries





	Unforgiven

His anger comes in waves. There are days when he can't even look at her, when he knows all he'll see is the person who gave his son away, not the woman he loves. On these days he slinks into his office, closes the door, and prays she doesn't knock. He searches databases for children who are missing or dead that fit the description of their son. There is relief when he finds nothing but also, and he hates himself fir this, disappointment that he isn't able to prove she made a mistake, that she couldn't keep him safe. It would destroy her. It would destroy both of them.

There are also days when he just wants to hold her and bury himself in her warmth. They are the lone survivors of their personal tragedy and he needs to be with her because she is the only one who understands the searing pain that grips him to his core. He knows she feels it too. And he hopes that if they hold each other close enough and feel their pain deeply enough they can, by sheer power of will, force the universe to protect their child. He has never wanted to believe in something more.

Scully does not wallow. After her father died, she needed to dive back into work. When she was diagnosed with cancer, she valiantly trudged along to cases with him and he learned to ignore her fading complexion and nosebleeds. So while he shouldn't be surprised that she's buried herself in her work at the hospital, it still feels like a betrayal. Saving the children of strangers may be her way of doing penance, but he wants to shake her and scream that she wasn't able to save the only child who truly matters. 

For the short few months between seeing his sister's spirit in California and his abduction, he had finally felt free. He didn't save his sister but he knew that, despite the horrors she endured in her too-short life, she was finally at peace. For too many years he had restrained himself from letting Scully know how he felt about her because as much as he wished--and suspected--she felt the same way, enjoying their relationship would've only made him feel guilty for distracting himself from his quest. But when she crawled into his bed after admitting that she believed all her choices in life had led to that very moment, he had let her in. And when she asked him to be the father of her child, he saw it as a chance to redeem himself. He would give their child all the love that his parents could not give him and Samantha. 

But he couldn't. He was a coward for leaving Scully and William alone because of the vague threat that hovered over him. He was no better than his own father who also tore his family apart out of fear. And Scully, the one person he thought he could trust to be stronger than him, succumbed to this fear as well and let the shadowy men who had haunted him his whole life take away his last chance at redemption. 

*

They try to live a semblance of a life but they both know they are tip-toeing on the edge of a bottomless canyon, one gust of wind away from descending into the abyss. After his name is cleared and he's no longer a fugitive, she hopes things will change, hopes that he'll emerge from his dark office and once again become the man she fell in love with. He takes her to an island and they spend a week as if time has stopped, as if in those frozen moments their son is somewhere warm and safe and the only thing they have to do is relish in each other's bodies and the reliable pleasures they've learned to give each other over the years. But time cannot stop. On the flight back home she sees him gazing out the tiny oval window and she knows nothing has changed.

Over the months after they return she begs him to consider teaching, writing a book, or consulting for the Bureau. She even suggests going back to profiling because she imagines even reaching into the depths of someone else's darkness may be better for him than drowning in his own. He humors her and says he'll look into it but nothing ever happens. Instead he descends deeper into his pain and farther away from her. She writes him prescriptions for antidepressants but finds the pill bottles untouched after months. She starts taking them herself but there is no simple shift in brain chemistry that can restore what they've lost. 

He was supposed to save the world. She didn't fully believe his claim that the world as they knew it was set to end on December 21, 2012, but she knew that if it were true he'd be the one to stop it. Instead, he sheepishly emerges from his study on that cold winter night and wordlessly lights a fire in the fireplace of their living room. It's been years since either of them had touched the fireplace. They enjoyed the warmth it brought to their drafty old home the first few years after they moved in, but as Mulder withdrew further she saw no need to treat herself to the indulgence. But on their potentially last night on earth he ignites a pile of logs and curls up behind her on the sofa and they watch it burn in silence. She closes her eyes and hopes that he's right, that nuclear fallout or extraterrestrial attacks will wipe them off the face of the planet and she won't have to live another day feeling the ache of her guilt. She imagines When she wakes up the sun is rising, the fire is out, and he is gone. 

Her decision to leave is years in the making and she isn't surprised when he doesn't try to fight her. He is holed up in his study so much of the time that she isn't sure when he even noticed her bags were packed and her toiletries were gone from the bathroom. He does come out and help her load her car with the handful of suitcases and boxes that comprise her only worldly possessions. Before she drives away he presses his palm against the driver's side window. She wants to return the gesture and let him know they are still and will always be connected through an unbreakable thread of love and hate and shared history but she can't. She shakes her head and shifts the car into drive. It takes all of her strength to not glance out the rear view mirror.


End file.
